


A Matter of Time

by ElodieGrimmesey



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Daryl Dixon and Feelings, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Murder, POV Original Female Character, Protective Daryl Dixon, Shane Walsh Has Issues, Smoking, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElodieGrimmesey/pseuds/ElodieGrimmesey
Summary: Atlanta, Georgia, 4200 miles away from home. Alice Lockwood is in trouble; the world has just ended. With the stifling effects of isolation and the struggle of surviving in the immediate aftermath of the walker outbreak, Alice won't make it if she's alone longer. She needs to adjust and she needs a friend. A partner. Unsure of her own morality and hope, and entangled in the coverup of a murder, she finds comfort in her abrasive conversations with the defensive redneck who she isn't even sure likes her that much.





	1. Hell in a Handbasket

* * *

**Part One - Adjustments**

**1 - Hell in a Handbasket**

_"It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke."_

_\- Søren Kierkegaard_

* * *

Shattered glass and spilled drinks, and even a little black blood coated the tiles, though the brunette couldn't see much of them in the unlit store. Her hands were quick as they moved the last three cans- of what, she didn't know- into her backpack and zipped it half up. Quietly, she crouched to see what remained of the bottom shelf. It had taken a few weeks for her to realize that people had been rushing too much to check the back of those lower shelves, which meant sometimes there might be an extra scrap for her to eat. One lonely little bag sat at the back of the shelf, it's silhouette just barely darker than the shelving. The packet rustled, snapping the silence, as the scavenger took it and unzipped her bag fully to add it to her small collection. She'd loved food before this, but now she had to eat whatever came by in crappy little quantities.

Glass crunched somewhere. She stood, grasping her baseball bat with clammy hands. Not another of them. Her shoulders were hunched around the bat and her pulse was throbbing in her ears as she begged for it to just walk away, but sounds continued around the store. Crunching, the thud of metal rolling into the bottom of a shelf, the shuffling of material dragging along something. The shelf before her wobbled back and forth, creaking dangerously. If it fell on her- her hands shook as she tried to fasten the zipper of her backpack. It was on her back and the bat was back in her hands with the quivering speed that only adrenaline could bring. She stood to the sound of her own loud breathing and started creeping down the aisle towards the grey rays of light that slipped in from outside. If she was quiet then maybe it wouldn't follow her.

"Hey, wait!"

The journalist spun, pointing the bat towards the sound. She was a sight to the man, backlit by the cloudy Atlanta light, blood splattered across her. He stood at the other end of the aisle, the dark side. In normal times the fridges behind him would have given off an artificial white light and a mildly irritating buzz. Now, silence.

"Who are you?" she asked, "I don't have anything to give you." The looters had been bad, setting fires to cars and throwing bricks through windows to steal televisions, but the bandits were worse. The brunette called them bandits because it seemed right for the type of person that attacked and stole.

The stranger walked forward, palms in the air, and began to speak, "I'm Glenn- look I won't do anything. No need to hit me, I just want supplies for our camp." As the light began to reach him, the woman could see his red cap. It had looked menacing in the darkness, but now it was calming. A reminder of the old world before armed thugs roamed the streets in dark hoods.

"What camp? The refugee center went to hell in a handbasket."

"A bunch of us made camp in some quarry when they napalmed the city. It's on maps and stuff. People have been joining us ever since. You could come with me- if you don't hit me."

The scavenger considered slowly. What if they napalmed the city again? What if this group wasn't all that good?

She lowered the bat. "Alice. I'm Alice."

* * *

The pair were walking through a department store. The shutters were down, which left them with Glenn's lone flashlight to see. Alice held her baseball bat close as they walked.

"Lori said the girls need more… underwear. Could you uh, grab it for me?" asked Glenn, his cheeks going red.

"I got it." She said, moving across the store to the underwear section. Wooden shelving rose to the ceiling, with the best bras and underwear separately laid out on it. The other bras and underwear hung around her, manakins towering out of the two racks at intervals to sexily display the best of the lingerie. She didn't like leaving his side. Alice just grabbed what she could before making to move away.

"I don't know sizes so I just grabbed a bunch, is that okay?" she called across the store. Silence greeted her, and Alice felt uneasy. Turning, she couldn't see his light so she tried to make out Glenn's head through the aisles. She saw the top of one moving across the store in the jean department, near the back corridor they'd come in through. She wondered if he was leaving without her. Alice was about to call to him again when she saw another two heads appear, and then more behind those. Shit. She dropped into a crouch, wondering if they'd heard her shout. The walkers were blocking the door. Alice moved to grab a hanger but stopped herself. If Glenn hadn't left her then he was here somewhere, and throwing things to distract the walkers could lead them right to him. His presence didn't change that the group, a dozen she thought, was staggering in her direction. Alice peered under the racks but couldn't see the boy's feet.

She listened to the shuffling and periodic groaning, trying to create a mental map of the dark room. A set of hangers clacked together as they were knocked, and then clattered about as some fell. The dead were close. Moving with fervor, Alice stayed to the wall and attempted to bypass the dead. She could see the walkers tumbling along down the center aisle looking for the source of her shout.

Where was the exit from here?

She stood, catching sight of the light spilling into a corridor in the opposite corner, but dropped when she saw a figure appear from the clothing racks she ducked back down again, turning to them, and raising her hands in a 'what the hell?' motion.

Glenn shrugged before gesturing to where the exit was. He moved forward, grabbing onto the clothing rack, and holding 3 fingers up. Alice nodded and grabbed the next one in preparation to push away their cover.

3\. 2. 1.

They pushed the racks and ran, tumbling through the corridor and past the back offices to the fire door. Alice slammed it closed but it opened to the outside which meant the dead could just push the busted lock open. Moments later, the dead started growling behind the door, forcing their entire bodyweights into the door as one large weight.

"We need something to block this or somewhere to run." She groaned as Glenn joined her pressing against the door. They couldn't hold it for very long. The alleyway before them was empty now but that could change with the noise they were making.

"There's nowhere here to hide. Trust me, I know the area." He stopped as they both pressed back harder against the doors. Alice felt her tennis shoes slipping on the gravel. "I thought we closed the door."

"I don't know." Alice looked at him then said, "I have an idea. Can you hold this alone for a minute?"

Glenn nodded, and she slowly backed off the door before jogging to the end of the alleyway. The street outside wasn't huge so there were only half a dozen walkers stumbling around. They were far enough away that Alice figured it was worth the risk. Weaving out into the road, Alice reached the silver motorcycle that had been left overturned in the center. She'd spotted it on the way in. Alice threw her baseball bat onto the ground to lift the motorcycle. It was heavy and Alice felt her arms burn a little as she lifted. Her hands moved faster than her brain, finding the key in the ignition and remembering how to operate the thing. Hearing the roar of the engine she was cautious for a second, moving slowly down the alleyway to Glenn.

She saw him staggered down against the door, arms stretched out. Relief crossed his face as she stopped.

"Get on!" she called, and he let go of the doors. The dead spilled out behind him, rushing for the motorcycle, but the pair were already long gone. Glenn whooped on the back of the bike as Alice rode along the sidewalk around a traffic jam. "Where am I going?"

"Down to the quarry. I know the way."

* * *

What the fuck, Glenn?" a man yelled, striding over to where Alice had stopped the bike. He was running a hand back and forth through his curled black hair and holding a black shotgun with the other.

"She saved my ass in Atlanta," Glenn said, climbing off the bike. Alice stayed on it, waiting for them to inevitably tell her to leave. Maybe she could head to the coast, find a boat. She had to find her parents.

The foreigner watched as the new man looked back and forth between the two. A crowd was gathering behind him from the many tents.

A blonde woman strode over, a handgun visible in her belt against her blue shirt. "Who's this?"

"I'm Alice." She said, looking to Glenn for support.

"Look, she's cool. I found her scavenging and asked her to come with me. She helped me get supplies before we got trapped in a store. If she wasn't there then I wouldn't have been able to get away." Glenn said, "I was holding the walkers while she got the motorcycle. If she was bad then she woulda just driven away, Shane."

Alice realized that Glenn gave her credit for a decision she hadn't even intended to make. "I wouldn't just ride off- I'm not a complete piece of shit." She climbed off of the motorbike, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Well, 'lotta people are." Shane said, "Dale, you still got that spare tent?"

An elderly man approached at that, stopping and adjusting the rifle on his back as he looked at Alice. "Of course. Here, I'll show you where it is." He said.

After a reassuring nod from Glenn, Alice followed the man named Dale. He wore a stupid hat that oddly suited him. "I'm Alice." She said, feeling a bit like a parrot. "Thank you… for helping. Really appreciate it, actually."

"Dale Horvath, nice to meet you. You're not from around here, though. On vacation?"

"No uh, I moved here last September. I'm a journalist." Alice noted the scattered tents and the way they left a large area in the center of them all for a fire-pit. It was that area that now held groups of people sat on chairs. She was aware of them looking at her as they talked. Talking about her, she imagined. "Everyone usually this nosey?"

"Says the journalist." Dale joked, "They're curious, I imagine. No one's joined this camp for maybe a month. It's easy to imagine that most of the world is dead."

"It's not like I'm part of the paparazzi or anything. Besides, Atlanta isn't really dead, not yet." Alice looked away as she said "There's a lot of looters and bandits. I bet there are decent people but they don't make their presence known if they can."

"That why you came back with Glenn?"

She took a long breath before looking back at Dale to reply. "I don't know how long that city has. They won't evacuate it when they bring in the support; all they're gonna do is bomb it again."

Dale busied himself opening the RV door and gesturing for her to follow before he responded, "You still think the military is coming?"

Alice bit her lip, feeling through the denim of her jacket for the phone in her pocket. It had been out of power for weeks, which didn't matter with the phone lines down. "They're the military, the government. They have to be. How are we alive if they aren't?"

"You make a good point." He was stood in the bedroom, digging under the bed. Alice took the moment to look at the RV, which was a quaint little thing and full of odds and ends. Mismatched cutlery in the drying rack, a game of monopoly on the table, a photo album tucked next to the driver's seat. She picked up the little metal racecar, smiling. "You like monopoly?" Dale asked, holding a black bag that must have held the tent in.

"Yeah. I used to play a lot as a kid, sometimes with my parents, and occasionally with myself. I'd a couple players, but I always made sure the racecar won. It's my favorite."

"Is there a reason or do you just like it?"

"I like the speed. Must be why I'm a reporter, watching the way the world flips itself over and over again, lightning quick." Alice turned the car over between her fingers before placing it back down, "Don't like this, though."

"No one does, I'm afraid."

* * *

Alice was scared of the mass of people gathering for food. She'd dumped the underwear on Glenn after he helped her put up the neon red tent, not wanting to approach the women she didn't know with lingerie. This was something she couldn't avoid, though, and ended up squished between Glenn and a guy named T-Dog. The darkness of the woods made her jumpy, especially with the fires and the noise coming off of the people. Alice hadn't even dared light a candle in her apartment back in Atlanta.

"Here," Glenn said, passing out the three bowls he'd been balancing to her, T-Dog and keeping one for himself. It was pasta and what must have been canned tomatoes. Alice reckoned it looked alright for a post-disaster meal.

"I can not wait for takeout." She said before shoving a mouthful of the pasta into her mouth. "Or to have a shower, damn."

T-Dog turned in his chair, bumping his bowl against hers with a plastic clack. Alice felt awkward at the motion, pasta still in her mouth.

"Hell yes, I could use a cheeseburger. Please Lord, let the fast food be okay." He laughed.

"Speaking of the city, I was gonna ask you," Glenn said, drawing her attention. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a moment, "Since my car died I've been struggling to go on the runs. I could use someone to watch my back while I'm out there, get me out of a tight spot."

Alice bit her nail, considering. She wasn't any good at killing the dead and was too jumpy to properly journalist did it because she had to, not because she wanted to. "I wouldn't be much help."

"I only survived today 'cause you got us out of there."

It was dangerous, downright stupid, but Alice wanted to be useful. More than that, she wanted to go back to the city. The ruin was hard to believe. It made sense, somehow, to go with Glenn. "We'll need to get some gas." She said, "and we need to stop outside of Atlanta. The noise of the motorbike will draw them to us, otherwise."

"Most places have been looted so we're gonna have to go somewhere big, somewhere where people might have left scraps. Especially if we wanna get a new CV. Shane mentioned that ours is busted and we need it to call for help." Alice nodded to the plan even though it meant there'd be a lot of walkers. If they were quiet then they'd be fine, she hoped. Her stomach churned.

Alice turned to observe the woods out of fear of the dead but instead spotted a smaller camp just a stone's throw away from the other tents. Just one tent with two men sat around their own tiny fire roasting something.

T-Dog said, "That's Merle Dixon and his brother, Daryl. I wouldn't go near those two. Merle's a whole boatload of nasty."

"Why don't they camp over here with you?"

"Guess they'd rather keep to themselves. Shane doesn't trust them one bit." He said before going back to his pasta.

Alice turned back, looking at the Dixon's. In the low light, she couldn't see much of them but something sparked her interest, made her curious. No, she told herself, pushing down the curiosity. She had more to worry about. After saying goodnight to everyone Alice retreated to the pile of borrowed blankets in her tent. She opened her empty backpack, having donated the food to the camp, and fished out of the bottom a notepad and pen. The journalist never went anywhere without one. Scribbling to test the pen, Alice began to jot down a list and a plan.

Tomorrow was as good a day to get bit as any other.


	2. You Scared of the Dark?

**Part One - Adjustments**

**2 - You Scared of the Dark?**

* * *

They left just after dawn, hoping to avoid the midday heat. It made the dead reek more, like out-of-date meat in the middle of a heatwave. The pair stood on the roof of a department store, looking out over the city. There were no lights or sounds, save for the meandering dead and a few echoing, faraway car alarms. It wouldn't be long before all the cars ran out of battery, silencing the last of the noise. The city had been busy, once, a cacophony of noise that never really stopped no matter what the time of day way.

"I like to keep this place as a home base, a safe room." Glenn said, "Somewhere to run for if it goes south."

"It's still in the city, still dangerous. Smart, though." Alice pulled at her ponytail to tighten it. The ends of her hair just reached the back of her neck, sticking to the sweat there. The heat was too much. "Where are we going?"

"Stoneley Mall. It's twenty minutes from here on foot, but we make it to there and there won't be any walkers inside; they closed it up when things went bad." Glenn held the map against the ledge and ran a finger along the route they'd take, "We cut through these buildings. They were clear when I was last there."

"But, if they locked it up then we can't get in. Dale's old hacksaw isn't exactly going to get through some chain."

"Someone's already busted in so we'll be able to use the shutter they opened. If that's not an option then," he nodded to the bag of tools, "we use the bolt cutters."

Alice crouched over the red bag, one hand resting on the hatchet tucked into her belt. The weight of it was a foreign object, digging into her side when she leaned forward, "You're way too smart."

"I just do the runs," he said like it wasn't an accomplishment that he'd been coming in and out of Atlanta since the start and he was alive. Alice nearly hadn't been a lot of times, and all she'd done was sit at home and wait for Delia to come home with something to eat. She remembered the day she'd come back, her clothes all torn up and black blood splattered down her face, and Alice knew she had to go with her on the runs as a backup. Looking at Glenn, Alice wondered if she'd ruined Delia's luck. She thought that she'd ruin his too.

"I was with someone before I met you. My ex." Alice fiddled with the screwdrivers in the bag, remembering how Delia would use one to stab the walkers through the eye. Delia called them drunks, because of how they walked. She never liked drinking. They'd fallen out over Alice's enjoyment of beer more than once. "She died. On our first run together. Her runs never went that bad, not before I went."

Glenn stood, not quite knowing what to say, "You kicked ass yesterday and I like having someone to watch my back. If I ever get trapped in a tight spot, I know I won't be alone."

Alice couldn't exactly back out now, leave him alone to do a run he'd planned for two. She nodded to herself.

Glenn spoke as they picked up the little they'd brought, "I thought you had no one in America."

"Just her. We'd broken up before it all. That didn't matter, not when the military started losing." the journalist looked away, remembering the hurried knocks on her apartment door and the terrified face of Delia when Alice had finally opened it.

"I left my family to move here. When this happened, I hoped that they'd come to Atlanta like everyone else. I don't know if they ever made it out of Michigan."

"They evacuated up north to Minneapolis and New York," Alice remembered the articles, "Canada started closing their borders when the infection spread here before Vancouver fell."

"How do you know all this?"

"I took a special interest in it," Alice looked away, "I just figured that it was another craze, you know? Something I'd never have to worry about."

"If I knew, I would have gone home," Glenn admitted, swinging the roof access door open. Alice took it as a sign that they needed to go, and she calmed her beating heart the best she could.

* * *

The mall was a short grey building that sat meekly between two giant offices. The stone wall was smooth and untarnished save for the large red letters protruding out, reading 'Stoneley Mall'. There were no windows on the building, something Alice hadn't thought of on the way over. It'd be pitch black inside.

The journalist stood with one foot propped up against the concrete stairs, waiting. She didn't like that the whole street was empty of walkers but she knew better than to go looking for them. Wherever the dead had gone, there were bound to be more.

Her legs felt heavy, dread pulling her back. Past the shutters there was a thick darkness that obscured all view. Alice watched Glenn as he fished in his backpack, pulling out two flashlights and handing one over. The flashlight was a solid, reassuring weight in her left hand. She pulled out her hatchet, just in case. She hung back as they climbed the stairs, just in case Glenn needed room to move quick.

Glenn flicked his flashlight on when he got to the top of the stairs, getting up real close to shine it inside the doorway. The light stretched for a few feet into the blackness, illuminating the dirty white tiling. With a nod, the man moved through the doors and became a silhouette shrouded in blackness. Alice turned on her own flashlight and followed him in. Their footsteps were the only sounds in the quiet. On their right, a glass storefront used the light to reflect eerie reflections back at them.

"I think the computer store's on the other side, Glenn."

He stopped, looking at her, "You know the way?"

"There." The journalist shone her light over to the wall past the glass, illuminating a map of the first floor. Once Glenn had gone to the map with his own flashlight, Alice moved her light about, the ray of light bouncing around the darkness. There was a corpse in front of one store, old, dark blood coating the glass. Alice couldn't see much flesh left in the mess of muscles and bones. "I thought you said they closed this down?"

"I guess they lied about it being empty when they closed it. Looks like they put them all down," He said, gesturing with the light to another body, bloody hole in its forehead. The walkers just looked like human corpses, less decayed and torn apart than most. Alice took off after Glenn when he resumed walking, flashlights bouncing around as they watched for any reanimated dead.

They came to the food court, a large circular room with different food places dotted around it. The area stank of decay and out of date milk. A set of escalators sat in the middle, leading up to the second floor, and two corridors stretched away into darkness on either side of them.

Alice's beam of light landed on an old box of food. She looked around uneasily, but saw and heard nothing in the total black around her. It reminded Alice of the underground, looking out of the train window to see pure darkness. There was no safely lit train to protect her here. She spun, light bouncing around, but saw nothing except the gleam of the white light on the glass storefronts. It was eerie, the dark quiet.

"Upstairs or downstairs?" she asked. Glenn made his way over to a map of both floors between the escalators before replying, "Up, and to the left."

Alice didn't trust the dead-still escalator. It didn't feel right to walk up an escalator like it was just stairs. Glenn climbed up beside her, occasionally turning around to check behind them. Upstairs, the closest store sat on the corner, a big display of posters covering the glass. The doors had a pile of stools scattered behind them, the round kind that you sit on to try on shoes. It looked like they'd been stacked up against the door, and then knocked down.

Shining her light on the mess, Alice moved closer. "Why make a barricade if the military came in and cleared this place out?"

"We should go," Glenn said, "There are other places to get supplies,"

"Those places are futher out and full of walkers though, right?"

A crash echoed through the halls. The pair turned off their lights, backing up against the display, but the sound was coming from where they'd just been, not where they were going.

"Did someone just open that other shutter?" Alice asked.

Glenn nodded, raising a finger for her to be quiet. There was a chance that it would be normal looters, people just coming for scraps- except, Alice wouldn't have ever touched this place alone. The only reason she'd agreed was that it was the only place big enough to provide for the whole quarry camp that didn't have hundreds of walkers around it.

Lights bounced down the hallway, followed by laughter and booming voices.

"Man, it is dark in here."

"You scared of the dark? You little bitch." the voices were deep, male, and had a cruel twist to their words.

The journalist swore under her breath, pulling Glenn back against the wall behind them. He looked concerned, but Alice couldn't explain right there.

She could just see down the escalator and saw the group advancing into the food court. If they were lucky, the darkness would hide the pair from the group, of which there must have been a dozen, all holding flashlights and enough guns for an armory hanging from their bodies. They must have raided one of the fallen military blockades. If the men saw them, the pair wouldn't be able to escape from the locked up building, not with them blocking the way.

"Why don't you all shut up so we can make a plan? I want a smoke before we start looking for shit."

The group stood at the bottom of the escalators, messing with something. Alice dropped into a crouch as she heard something click and an orange light filled the space around them. They were lighting cigarettes. Must have been confident that nothing would happen to them. Alice needed to find a fire exit before the group- of which the journalist was sure were bandits- found them. She pulled along, almost crawling as she moved towards the corridor on her left. She realized she was struggling to breathe. Images of Delia being shot down were flashing in her mind.

A shuffling echoed down the same corridor that Alice was headed towards. Dragging feet, not steps. She moved back to Glenn, peering cautiously down at the floor below. They could stay quiet for now, but they'd have to move very soon. One of the bandits pointed their light upwards, studying the faux daytime painted onto the roof. Through the minimal light, Alice saw the pair of walkers staggering towards the railing. They weren't far, just two storefronts down the left corridor, and aiming straight for the center. A blue toilet sign glowed in the light on the opposite wall.

The dead would see Alice and Glenn before they made it over the barrier, though. Nudging Glenn, she gestured to the store that had been barricaded with the chairs, and the pair moved around the display to reach the doorway. Alice barely breathed as she took each step, one hand grasping at her hatchet and the other resting on Glenn's arm to follow him.

She heard a shout, and turned for a moment to see one walker reach over the railing before tumbling down, followed just after by a loud crunch and shouting. The flashlight that had been pointing to the ceiling moved, plunging the pair back into darkness. Where had the other walker gone?

Glenn must have thought the same, because Alice felt his arm yank her, moving quickly. She felt him turn into the store from earlier and realized that the stools from the barricade were around them, out of sight and easily disturbed. She stood, using her hands and feet to feel the air before her. There wasn't anyone behind them yet.

Something toppled, and then thudded on the floor. It came from in front of her. Glenn had knocked a stool over. Every sound seemed a thousand times louder in the silence, especially when you were hiding.

A shout came from below, "Fuck, is that more braindead upstairs?"

Her heart faltered, remembering the weapons strapped to them, and she followed Glenn's path until he stopped. The silhouette of something sat before her, and Alice realized it was one of those big round clothing racks. Climbing in after Glenn, she ended up crouched against him as he rested on one knee, the hangers still tapping together from their entry.

A series of thuds and bangs came from somewhere, maybe the doorway, followed by thundering footsteps. White light shone into the room. Alice breathed through pursed lips, trying to make her breathing inaudible.

"Jesus Christ, this one musta been sexy back when it was alive." She heard a faint groan, and then a loud crack, before another crunch accompanied by the squelch of brain matter.

"You fuckin' creep." Laughter echoed, and then stopped, "Why the hell did it come in here? It knew we was downstairs."

"I ain't the Wizard of Oz. Go have a look if you think something's up. One inside probably jus' knocked somethin' and drew it over,"

More footsteps followed, and the sound of something rolling. The light cast a shadow on the floor, and it crept under the bottom of the coat rack and onto their feet. She stood still, clutching at Glenn for balance. Her heart murmured in her eardrums as it beat. She didn't want to die, not here, not being shot in the middle of a coat rack in some abandoned mall. She didn't want to die at all.

"If someone's touchin' our shit I'll be mad."

"There ain't no one here but the brain-dead. Pete's gonna get mad soon; He wants out of here by sundown."

The light moved away, and footsteps thudded back down the hallway. Alice heard voices talking, but couldn't hear what they were saying. She took a deep breath, finally feeling like she could breathe. Alice and Glenn stayed perched together, listening for every little noise. Minutes might have passed, but to them, it felt like hours.

Glenn whispered, "How do we get out? Can we reason with them?"

"I don't know." She replied, before slowly pushing apart two coats to peer outside the rack. There was no light on the second floor and Alice reckoned they'd gone back downstairs. "Some walkers must have gotten stuck when they locked it up, or some people who were bit died in here."

They sat for a few minutes, it felt like, staring at each other's dark grey silhouettes.

"I've seen a group like this before," Alice dragged her hand over her face, "They- they killed Delia. Tried to rape her." The memories were overwhelming again, too much.

* * *

The stars were out when they finally made it back to camp.

The hours in the bathroom had proved uneventful, despite the footsteps storming by. A bandit group held no interest in the bathrooms and, hours later, left. Alice and Glenn had heard the noise fade and the gunshots being fired outside before risking leaving the bathroom. There were windows smashed in, shards of glass carpeting the lower floor, but no bandits.

"You two feel like talking about today yet?" Shane asked, a look of agitation on his face. "I mean, you left early this morning and you came back after dark with nothing."

"We got trapped." Glenn said, "Bunch of people with guns came in, talking about how it was their stuff and that there'd be trouble if someone touched it."

"The new CB wasn't worth getting shot at, or staying in Atlanta at night." Alice said, "No way out of there without them seeing us. We waited until they left, that's why we're so late."

"You haven't seen them people before, Glenn? How many runs you done to that city - five, six?"

"Eight." Glenn corrected, "I haven't been around that area before, but everyone said we needed the CB to hear any new messages."

Shane ran a hand through his black hair, shotgun resting across his legs, and nodded, "I want more people on the night watch, make sure no one comes out here claiming things. But do not worry people, they have bigger targets in the city. It's just a precaution, that's all."

Glenn said, "You said we needed food. How much longer can we last?"

"A couple days, but I'm gonna need you to do a run before it gets serious. Think you can manage that?"

"I can go tomorrow, but I'm not going back unarmed." He said. Alice shrunk into her chair.

"I'll go." A voice announced, and Alice turned to see that Andrea had been the one to volunteer, "I've got the gun that my dad gave me."

"Me too. If Andrea goes then so am I." Amy said, but Andrea immediately put a hand on her sister's shoulder.

"You're not coming, Amy. I want you to stay here."

Morales, who sat with his wife and two children, interrupted the bickering between the two, "Let me go with your sister, Amy. I'll make sure she gets back just fine." Alice hadn't ever spoken to the man, but Glenn had pointed him out before they'd left that day. She couldn't imagine leaving behind your kids to go back to that city.

Glenn looked at Alice, questioning, but she shook her head. She was done with the place. It was the only place in America she'd known, but she wouldn't go back if she could help it.

It was then that Merle Dixon sauntered into the center. His body swayed as he walked, and Alice realized he was completely out of his tree on drugs.

"You people ever plannin' on inviting me?" he boomed, "Seems you people ain't got no manners, so I'm invitin' myself.

Shane straightened up, scowling at Merle, "I don't need you putting this group in danger."

Merle laughed, "Don'tcha you worry, Officer. I'll be just fine by the morning." The man grinned, turning to wink at Andrea, "Hey sugartits, you wanna help a man out? I got a real bad itch." His hands gestured to his crotch. Alice laughed as Andrea stuck her finger up at Merle.

Alice felt something against her arm and turned to see that Glenn had nudged her. His cap was back on, a few dark hairs poking out from under it.

"You aren't coming?"

"It's so dangerous. You don't have to go, Glenn, you really don't." Alice said, "If you need me I'll come, but I'm…" Scared.

"What?"

"Nothing. Do you need me to come?"

"No. I don't like having so many people anyway; I've always gone into Atlanta alone before today."

"More people to watch your back." Alice offered, trying not to feel bad about not going with them. The anxiety crept up her spine at the thought of it though, images of being shot racing in her mind. It made her feel sick with fear, the idea of a bullet tearing through flesh and organs.

"More people to get up shit creek with." He corrected her before standing, "I wanna get some sleep before tomorrow if I can."

"Night, Glenn."

Alice didn't sleep for a long time that night, and when she did, she dreamt of running from beams of light, never moving fast enough to get away.

* * *

Alice woke up again while it was still fairly dark. Despite the heaviness of her eyelids, closing her eyes just left her lay mindlessly tossing and turning. Her brain was awake. Shoving on her shoes, she ventured outside to find out the time. Alice felt lonely inside the small tent.

The sky was a shade of blue-grey tinted with enough light to signal the coming dawn. A figure stood on watch, so she climbed up the back of the RV and waved as she got to the top.

"Morning, Shane." She said, taking the seat he'd left empty, "Tell me to move, if you want the chair."

"You're up early." He commented, cap low on his face. He stood, figure offset against the lightening sky. "Reminds me of my partner; he used to get up at the stupidest of times. The man loved getting up and having breakfast with Lori and Carl."

"What was his name?"

"Rick. He was in a coma when this all happened." Shane moved, picking up a flattened camping chair and folding it out. He didn't look at her while he spoke about Rick.

"Lori's husband, right?"

Shane took a seat, holding his shotgun with the butt pressed against the roof of the RV.

"He was my best friend too." He looked down, then away. He was on watch, sure, but Alice thought that he wasn't looking at her on purpose, "I used to date this girl, Patty Taylor. We were together in high school, and every day I go to him telling him that I ain't got a clue what to do with her, and every day that sonofabitch knows exactly what I should do, every time."

"He sounds like a good man."

He paused for a long time before saying, "Yeah. Yeah, I just wanna be half the man he was."

"I'm sorry." She said. It was just something you said when you had nothing else to say.

"I saved Lori and Carl, that's the main thing." He looked at her, "You have any family over here?"

"Nope. It was just me." She played with the zipper of her jacket, detaching and reattaching the end. "The phone lines were already down by the time I realized it was serious. I'm stupid - didn't believe that it could get this bad. But if dodos can go extinct from being hunted, I guess humans can too. Never got to call my parents."

"I'm sorry." He said, looking her in the eye, and she knew he was saying it for the same reason that she did. Mutual guilt held the two for a moment. "Did you just compare all of this to dodo birds?"

"I don't mean any disrespect. I just mean the dead are hunting us extinct." Alice stumbled over the words, oblivious to the grin he struggled to hold back, "Oh god, I don't kno-"

The sound of twigs snapping caused the pair to jump to their feet. Shane pointed his shotgun down, slowly scanning the direction the sound had come from.

A figure hidden by shadow shoved past a bush, reminding Alice of the bandits from the mall for a second, before coming into view.

"Damnit Carl, your mother told you not to leave our sight. What were you doing in the woods?" Alice watched Shane climb down from the RV two rungs at a time to speak to the boy who was awkwardly stood, looking guilty.

"I needed the toilet."

"You best let one of us know next time so we can go with you, yeah?" Shane reached forward, ruffling the kid's hair, "C'mon, it's early."

Carl kept his eyes to the ground, and as he walked with Shane back to his tent, Alice wondered if Shane was doing more than just trying to help his best friend's family.

* * *

Alice stood by as the group loaded into the van, joined by T-Dog and Jacqui who'd joined the party that morning. Glenn gave her a wave before jumping into the passenger seat. The others were already inside the van, save for Morales, who stood beside it to hug his family. Alice wasn't sure how Merle had managed to be the first one ready, sat smoking on the bonnet- no, that was a hood here- of the van.

"What am I supposed to do all day without my tools?" Dale mused beside her, "I can't work on the RV."

"I remember a board of monopoly in your possession. I'm a mean landlord, you know." Alice said, smirking at Dale, "Want me to prove myself by beating you?"

"If there's nothing else to do, I submit to playing a game with you before my watch."

Alice stopped to see Morales get into the van and start the engine, cautiously starting to drive away up the dirt path. A bad feeling pulled at her chest.

Even as the pair began to walk away, Alice couldn't help but turn back and watch the van as it disappeared into the trees. An ill feeling followed her, but there was nothing she could do now. Mentally calculating how long there was before the group was supposed to return, Alice turned and continued walking on.

"Dale?"

"Yes?"

"I'm being the racecar."

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter (you're my favourite people in the world now) and another thank you to anyone who has also read this chapter. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that it didn't disappoint from the first. Just for the record, Stoneley Mall isn't a real place as far as I know and is just a place I invented for this fic.

DISCLAIMER : No characters, plots, references, etc from The Walking Dead Universe are owned by me. Only my OC and my prose are mine.   
  



	3. Speaking of the Queen

**Part 1 - Adjustments**

**Chapter 3 - Speaking of the Queen**

* * *

"What the hell is Boardwalk?" Alice grumbled despite the fact that she got to buy the most valued property on the board, "The most expensive one is called Mayfair back in England." She passed Dale the false paper money and he handed her the property card.

"Different countries, different places," Dale said, shaking the die in his hand before dropping them onto the board. "Seven."

"I mean, why do all of the names end in avenue on this board?" Alice listened to the soft tapping as he moved his piece along, scowling when he landed on 'Just Visiting' instead of something bad. Not that she'd ever wish a bad thing on Dale, but it was Monopoly, and Monopoly was not a game for getting along.

A shout came from outside, and Alice looked out of the window to see Amy crouched over the CB. The brunette moved from the booth at the same time as Dale, just moments faster than him as she thudded to the door and dropped to the ground outside.

"Amy, is that them?"

"I'm not sure." She said, moving aside to let the foreigner join her beside the CB.

"I….highway 85…repeat…city..." the CB crackled, signal barely coming through. Alice strained to try and figure out the rest of the words but heard nothing more the echoes of a male voice and a whisper that might have been Atlanta.

Amy spoke back, frantically shouting at the machine, "I can hear you, you're coming through!"

"That isn't them. It's some guy, I think." Alice said. Amy fiddled with the dial, trying to clear the signal as more static stuttered through. Alice had no idea how to work it and sat, trying to make sense of the static.

Alice turned her head at the sound of voices to see Dale approaching just as the static stopped coming through.

"I couldn't get through to him." the blonde said to Dale. Alice shrugged, stepping back as Shane stomped over with a hatchet in hand. Already flattened twigs cracked under the weight of his rushed movement.

Dale raised a hand to the man, "Come on, son. You know how best to work this."

Alice stood by as Shane crouched beside the CB, swinging his hatchet into a tree stump for no apparent reason, and spoke into the CB, "Is the person who called still on the air? This is Officer Shane Walsh, broadcasting to a person unknown. Please respond. I repeat, Officer Shane Walsh broadcasting to person unknown. Over." He paused, waiting, but nothing came back through, "They're gone."

"Did he say he was going to the city?" Alice asked. She felt a sadness in her chest at this person going there, seeing the mess of it. If they were going into the city, they must still expect the refugee center to be there. They'd die looking for safety. He was pretty much already dead.

"He said he was going down highway 85 into Atlanta." Amy said, "He was so close to us."

"I've been sayin' for weeks now that we ought to put signs up, warning people away from the city," Lori said. Alice hadn't noticed her approach but said nothing as the woman glared at Shane. Lori made a good point, but they had nothing to spare on signs and no people to do it, not with most of the quarry camp's inhabitants too terrified to wander down to the water themselves. Shane had to do the runs for water every day.

"Yeah, folks don't know what they're getting into," Amy said.

"We do not have the time-"

Lori snapped at him, "Then we can make the time."

"I don't know about you but I do not think we should be putting signs up, telling' people where we are with the group that Alice and Glenn ran into still runnin' around." Shane stood, staring at Lori, "It is not worth it."

Lori walked away at that, raising her heels and stomping them down a little too hard. Shane followed her after a minute, both disappearing into their blue tent. Alice saw them talking through the mesh window before turning back to Dale, "Want to finish our game?"

* * *

"What's wrong?" Dale didn't pick up the die, ignoring his turn.

"I didn't go on that run." Alice mumbled, "I should have."

"No one can blame you for not wanting to go back," Dale said, reaching forward and to Alice's shock, swept the game pieces from the board into a pile. Seeing her wide eyes he shook his head, "We can finish this another time. I don't think it's the time for monopoly."

Alice nodded in agreement before helping him, separating her money before adding it back to the bank, "I don't think I told Glenn - I know I didn't, about the dead going about in groups in the city. Like, one will brush up against a car and the alarm goes off so more come over. Then one, maybe they accidentally walk into the window, but another one thinks they're trying to get in there so they start whaling on the window and soon, there's a couple dozen of them just trying to get through this one window for no reason."

"You're saying that they follow each other?"

"I think so, but it isn't like follow the leader. They just go where there might be food. I remember them all surrounding around this empty car outside my apartment just because the alarm was going off. Even when the battery died, other walkers kept coming along and joining the crowd. It was like when kids cheat on a test, just blindly doing what the person beside them does. That was how Delia described it, anyway."

"I thought you were alone," Dale said, folding up the monopoly board. Alice tensed up. She'd stopped loving Delia a long time ago, but she'd been all Alice had in this world.

"Oh. My ex, Delia, she visited me just after this started and decided to stay. We were broken up, sure, but neither of us had anywhere else to go. She lived in France for most of her life, so we were both foreigners here." Alice reached for her phone before remembering that it was just dead weight in her pocket, "Bollocks. I stored all my pictures on my phone but, they're gone now."

"Can I ask what happened to her?"

Alice stayed quiet for a long moment, remembering, then nodded, "One of the first runs I ever went on. It was about a month in, she found a bunch of food and I went to help. She was outside, starting up the car when a group came. They shot her down." Alice shrugged, standing as though she might run from the whole truth that clutched her mind, "I ran out the back, after. Never went back there,"

"That's horrific. I'm sorry for your loss." Dale said.

"Everyone's lost someone. I'm just glad that groups like that are rarer than the dead." She said, despite the regret that dragged at her. Alice tried not to think about whether she could have stopped it, saved Delia. She was her back up and she'd done nothing. It was just chance that Alice hadn't been the one out there, starting up the car.

* * *

Alice stood with Lori, a damp t-shirt in her hands. She reached up to hook it over the line before taking the two wooden pegs that Lori handed her. She looked over at the tree line when she was done, watching the four children playing.

"How old is Carl?" she asked, reaching down and picking up the next t-shirt and two pegs.

"He's twelve." Lori said, "I'm glad he's made friends here. Lord knows I don't want to think about what happened to his school friends."

"Yeah, it's terrible," Alice said, turning back to the washing, "At least you have your son." Lori reminded her of the child walkers she'd seen a video of.

"I wish he had his father. He needs a dad at a time like this." Lori closed her eyes for a moment, "Did you have any little brothers or sisters?"

"Nope. Only child, thank God for that. It's bad enough that my parents are back there without me."

"You still think they're alive?" Alice looked up at the woman, narrowing her eyes. There was no reason, other than the complete destruction of society by the living dead, for Alice to think that they were anything other than alive. She was just a glass half full person - sort of. The CB saved her from replying to Lori, crackling away and drawing their attention.

"-is that you? We're in some deep shit- we're- trapped in the department store-" Faces fell in the crowd, especially Alice's. She should have been with them - and the relief she felt that she hadn't just made guilt nag at her more.

"No way. Don't look at me like that, we do not go after them. We don't even know where they mean." Shane said, spinning in a circle as he spoke to the crowd. Dale stood with the CB, twisting the dials to try and end the static. The journalist started to form an idea, ignoring Shane.

"He said department store, right?"

"Alice, we don't know which-"

"I know where he means, we went there yesterday. I can go-" She stepped forward, from between the ranks of people, to face Shane.

"There is no way that you're going anywhere near them. If they're trapped then there's nothing we can do." He towered over her, despite Alice being a good 5'7 or so, and she almost shrunk back from his gaze. Instead, she started walking, pulling the keys for the motorbike from her pocket, "I can get there, pull them away with the sound of the bike. I'll get out of there quick sharp."

She heard his footsteps moving quickly on the ground, following. "No one in this camp is gonna risk their lives on a lost cause. They are already gone - Are you even listening to me?"

Alice's shoes scraped on the ground as she stopped and spun on her heel, "No, no I'm not." She gave him a sickly smile, "Take your 'protect who's left' bullshit and shove it up your arse."

The girl was turning back when an arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her back into his chest so hard that she felt the air leave her lungs. His head growled over her shoulder, "It is not worth the risk." His other hand dug into her arm, grabbing for the keys.

"Get off of me!" Alice swung her heel back into his shin. She heard him hiss but he didn't let go. Her fingers clawed around his bicep, clutching the keys with her other hand. He didn't relent, despite the red crescent-moon-shaped marks she'd left along his bicep, and she finally gave in.

"The keys." He growled. She tossed them into a small puddle, a rut of wet mud left from the earlier shower. Shane let go, marching over to the puddle and reaching down. Alice smiled to herself as Shane reached into it, pulling out the keys and wiping them off on his tan pants. They left streaks of brown watermarking his clothes.

He looked back at her, the grey cloud cover washing out his features, "I'm doing what's best for this camp. You will not go to Atlanta."

"I will." She said, moving and making sure to ram her shoulder into him hard enough to make it sore as she walked by him. The crowd watched them as they parted, and Alice couldn't help but be annoyed that no one had tried to stop Shane. She understood why he'd stopped her; people running off and getting killed was not good for the group morale, and letting people go off to die wasn't good for people's consciences either. Yet, she couldn't help but feel angry about being told what to do.

* * *

"Have you heard anything from them?" Alice asked, joining Dale on the RV. She was positive that she'd climbed the ladder of the RV more times in her few days at the camp than she'd climbed any other ladder for the whole duration of her life. Her eyes followed Shane as he sat with Lori and Carl.

"No, nothing has come through." He said, his eyes following her gaze, "I hate to say it but Shane may be right. Going into Atlanta, leading a group of those things around with the hope that everyone can escape? It's dangerous, and it likely won't work."

Alice would have replied if not for an echoing siren, growing steadily louder. "Is that a car alarm?"

She stood staring out into the woods. The ear-piercing sound made her ears hurt a little. It bounced about so that Alice couldn't tell which direction it was coming from.

"What is it?" Shane called up to them, "Give me an eye, Dale."

"Hard to tell." Dale replied, adjusting his grip on the binoculars. The noise grew closer. "Stolen car is my bet."

Alice could see it now, a red flash blurring through the trees down the winding road to the quarry. She'd sort of wished for it to be a kind of government alarm, no matter how much she knew it couldn't have been. The thing, a car, caused a spray of gravel and mud as it slid to a stop, alarm covering the sounds of everyone yelling. Alice watched Glenn jump from the car, watched him wave his arms and shout something that she couldn't hear because of the screaming alarm. She bolted for the ladder, rushing ahead of Dale to get down.

Amidst the noise of Shane, Jim and Amy yelling at him, the journalist threw herself on the boy, arms wrapping around his shoulders and yanking him close. "Oh my god, oh god Glenn, I thought you were dead."

She heard Amy behind her, begging Glenn to tell her where the others were, where Andrea was. Shane yelled over Amy's voice, "Pop the damn hood, Glenn!"

"They're fine, they're fine." He said, detaching himself from Alice to allow her to lean into the car and pop the hood. She watched Jim pull something out from under the bonnet, silencing the alarm, "I'm fine too. They're right behind me."

"What were you thinking, bringing that down here?" Shane was angry, his emotions likely exacerbated by the rough day he'd had. "You wanna bring every walker around here down on this camp?"

"The sound was echoing all over the hills, hard to pinpoint a source." Dale said, "I'm not saying it was any less of a stupid decision but it should be okay."

"Where is everyone?" Alice asked, not seeing or hearing any more vehicles. If Glenn was the only survivor then she could live with it, but Alice didn't want to. Morales, Andrea, T-Dog and Jacqui, they were good people. Even Merle. She was drawing the conclusion that Glenn had left them behind, despite his assurances that they were fine.

"Again, everyone's fine. They're on their way."

Alice pulled Glenn back into a hug, "I'm sorry I didn't come with you."

"It's okay. We met a new guy, he helped us get out of there."

"New guy?" Shane asked, but to Alice's relief, a box van had appeared down the winding road. It had to be holding the group. Alice turned, watching as the doors opened. Amy began to cry with joy as her sister pounced out of the back of the van, followed by Jacqui and T-Dog. They walked together, greeting everyone.

Morales climbed from the passenger door, blood splattered on his brown shirt and a grin on his face all the way over to his panicked family. There was a pureness in the sight of him getting back to his family.

"Where's Merle?" Alice asked, mentally counting the people who had left the van.

"He's still in Atlanta." Morales said. Alice frowned. Not dead, but still there. Had he abandoned the group? Alice couldn't imagine a man, even Merle Dixon, leaving his brother behind though. Daryl was still in those woods- so they thought. "We had to leave. Hey, Helicopter boy, come on out!"

She watched a figure emerge from the van, a flash of brown that Alice quickly realized was some sort of sheriff get-up. She wasn't sure that sheriffs were even a thing anymore. He looked a little ridiculous at first until the journalist realized that he really was some sort of sheriff. He had a gun holster and everything. This uniform wasn't stolen.

Alice might have laughed if it weren't for the way that the sheriff stopped and teared up.

"Dad! Dad!" She turned to see Carl running at the man, and put together what was happening. A smile stretched her face from ear to ear. This had to be Rick. It was only on account of their conversation about the man that caused Alice to cast her eyes to Shane as the family embraced, seeing the way he shifted back and forth on the spot. The journalist couldn't tell if he was happy, devastated or lost. Maybe he was all three. He seemed to be happy, but in the same breath, his eyes became downcast, lost.

Rick and Lori hugged, sandwiching Carl between them, and Alice smiled at the miracle. Lori's dead husband was here, alive.

The reunion between Rick, his family, and Shane went on for a good few minutes. Alice admittedly lost interest pretty quickly, and she soon joined looked at Morales and T-Dog, trying to understand what they were saying.

"Merle must be dead."

"He's handcuffed to the roof of the department store. I chained the door shut so the geeks couldn't get to him." T-Dog said.

"Why didn't you just uncuff him?" Alice interjected, but Morales placed a hand on her shoulder.

"The walkers were coming in after us and the key got lost." He said, "Merle was causing trouble, shooting rounds off the building and pointing a gun at us. We had to cuff him up."

"He's trapped on a roof, in Atlanta, at night?" Alice held the bridge of her nose, "He's probably freezing, and the sunstroke… Are you even planning to go get him? It isn't human."

"Merle Dixon? You wanna go to Atlanta at night to save Merle Dixon?" Morales said, but Alice shook her head at him.

"He's a person, and no person deserves to starve or dehydrate or whatever to death." she scowled. That scowl changed, though, when Glenn held out a pen.

"Was in the glovebox of the Challenger," he was still grinning at the mention of the fast car he'd gotten to drive, "You were talking about writing, so."

"Thanks, Glenn," Alice could have probably found a pen in Dale's RV, and still lacked paper, but the fact he'd thought to grab her a pen was nice. Alice had been entirely lonely during her time in Atlanta, spending most of her weekends alone unless her boss and friend Jonathan, or Delia, invited her out. It was nice to have someone think of her.

"No problem. I mean, I know it's not really a lot, but no one's really happy here, so..."

"Glenn, you think about other people too much," Alice slipped the pen into her pocket, "Putting your neck on the line constantly for runs, and just generally being a good person."

"People are worth saving, right? Most of them." Glenn turned his head towards Dale, saw his beckoning hand, and turned back to Alice, "Catch up later?"

"Yeah, go on, Glenn. I'll see you later." Alice said, giving Dale a small wave. She walked away, heading for the washing basket near Lori's tent. Checking that neither of them were around, she leaned in and grabbed the tan cargo pants from the top of the pile. They were still a little damp with the wet mud from the keys Alice had chucked into the puddle, but they were what she needed. Feeling at the pockets, she searched for the keys to the motorbike.

She jumped back as a voice behind her said, "I'm not dumb enough to leave the keys in those."

Alice dropped the pants, turning to Shane, "It isn't right to just leave him there. Give me the keys before it gets dark. You don't have any right to-"

"Right now there's no law, no nothin'. So what I say goes, and what I say is that you sit your ass down somewhere and forget about Merle." He snapped, stomping past her to go into the tent. Alice was about to walk away when she saw him collecting his things into a bag through the mesh tent window. Lori must have kicked him out of the tent, but he was still Rick's best friend. Why would Rick be bothered? Unless Lori had reasons to keep Shane away from her now... Alice felt her suspicions of the pair grow.

"You been kicked out?" she called, but he didn't reply, "You can share with me if you give me the keys. If you're right and I die then you can have the whole tent to yourself."

"Find yourself something else to do." He snapped, and Alice flinched back from the emotions in his voice. Nodding to herself, she turned and looked around. T-Dog had said his van was nearly out of fuel, and with the motorbike, Shane's jeep and the RV out of question, Alice could only think of one other vehicle to try.

"Hey, Carol, right?" she smiled, approaching the woman who stood beside their little yellow Cherokee, "I need a favor."

"I don't know…" she looked flustered, moving away from Alice, and the journalist noticed the bruise flowering down her arm from under her shirt. These weren't easy times, so it was easy for the girl to imagine it was simply a war wound and nothing else.

"Merle's chained to a roof. I want to go get him." She said, ignoring the lead pressing down on her chest at the idea of going back, "Can I borrow your car?"

"I wish I could." Carol spoke, low and mumbled, "Please let me get back to my work."

"Why not? It's a man's life-"

"Please, just go." Carol turned away, folding a shirt against her stomach.

The end of the day was coming quickly and Alice thought it was a bit much to still be working. An idea of why Carol was still folding up men's shirts came to her and a grimace settled on her features.

"It's alright." She smiled at the woman, spinning in search of the man she'd seen doing nothing but smoking and yelling since she'd arrived. He sat in a chair around where his own separate fire would soon be lit, his back to them, a cloud of smoke floating above him.

Alice's trainers sunk into the ground a little as she walked over, "Ed, can I please borrow your car?"

"Why the fuck would I let an uppity bitch like you touch my car?" he spat as he spoke, not even turning to face her. Alice walked around to his front, stretching out her hands in an attempt to stay calm.

"Rude. I'm not 'uppity', I'm just trying to help someone who's trapped."

He laughed, mocking, "You wanna take my car after Merle Dixon? Someone like you will end up dead and I'll lose my car. You best go on now, don't even think about talking to my wife again. She knows not to give you shit that's ours."

Alice looked over Ed's shoulder to Carol, who was hanging up the washing and recalled the bruise down her arm. She had no proof, none at all, and wasn't ever supposed to make an unsolicited judgment but well, Alice didn't like Ed one bit. "Is she your wife or your punching bag?"

"The hell did you just say?" Ed stood, knocking his chair over as he did, and squaring up against Alice. She took an uneasy step back, certain he wasn't opposed to hitting her.

"Men like you belong in the dirt, Ed." Alice would have spit at him if she hadn't grown up with the idea that it was wrong. Be the better person, all of that.

"You best shut your mouth you little-" Ed had raised his first, but in a quick second, a figure was pressed between the pair. Shane. Alice saw Rick hanging back just behind him.

"How 'bout we both calm down, yeah?" Shane said, turning his head for just a moment to give Alice a look of annoyance that said he knew what she'd been up to. Half the camp had probably heard the 'conversation' between her and Ed.

"This bitch-"

"You need to calm down, Ed." Shane interrupted, "We all help each other out in this camp, that's how it works. Ain't no reason to be so angry 'bout a request."

Alice looked at the two men, puffing out their chests and glaring, before taking a few steps back, "Shane, I need to speak to you."

He turned, looking at her, then looked back at Ed long enough to see that the man wasn't acting on his anger just yet. The cop followed her away from the others to the treeline, giving her a questioning look.

"Ed's beating Carol, he's got to be." Alice stood with her arms crossed, staring up at the man, "It's so disgusting. We can't let that happen."

"We can't do anything, you know that. I can't just beat him up. Someone, probably Dale, is gon' have a problem with that."

"And people don't have a problem with him beating his wife?" The journalist ran her hand over her eyes, "You're gonna leave Merle in Atlanta, you were leaving the whole group there, and you're gonna let a man beat his wife? How can you act like the leader here when you don't do anything?" She told herself that she didn't see the hurt in his eyes.

He got real close, bowing his head down low to speak, "I know what's best for this group. Do not question me." She felt his hot breath on her cheek.

"I think you forgot to wear your crown today, arsehole." She said, "Give me my keys."

"They aren't yours. You stole it."

"From a dead guy. Let me go for Merle. The walkers would have probably left following the van or Glenn out of the city, meaning all I have to do is walk in and bust open the door and the cuffs."

"What part of I know what's best do you not understand?"

"What part of stop being an arse don't you understand?"

Shane stared at her, one hand resting possessively over the pocket of his pants, before shaking his head. He was about to walk away when the sheriff appeared beside the two, looking concerned. Alice was ready to yell at him, too, should he side with his piece of shit friend.

"This about Merle?" he asked, having heard their heated discussion from more than a handful of steps away.

"Tell her how stupid going back is, Rick. C'mon, you've always been good telling pairs of tits what's what." There was so much anger on his face, Alice might have backed away if not for her own bubbling rage.

"You fucking serious?" Alice was tempted to slap Shane and probably would have if her life wasn't dependent on him getting water and shooting down any stray walkers. She wondered how literally anybody had ever tolerated Shane and his sexism?

"Shane." Rick's voice was stern as he spoke to his partner, "I dropped a bag of guns. Cleared out what was left in the station before I came down here. The dead took down my horse and I dropped the bag when I was running. It's not just about getting Merle."

"So if you give me the keys I can go get those now, Shane." Alice looked at the hat-less sheriff, "Don't tell me you agree with him. For Christ's sake, I'm twenty-five, not fifteen."

"You act like a kid," Shane said, which Alice didn't argue against. She was a little childish, but not when it mattered. Not now. They needed the guns, and Merle needed off of that roof.

"It's nearly dark. You really want to go into Atlanta?"

"There's a man handcuffed to a roof without anything warm to wear or anything to eat and drink. It isn't right."

"I'm done. You tell her, Rick." Shane turned, walking away. Alice knew better than to ask him about the keys again.

"Let me take the van you came back in." She said, "I'll go alone, won't risk anyone." Her heart dropped a little at that, at being alone, but she needed to help him.

"I haven't told Shane yet but I'm going back in the morning after I've seen my family again. If you want you can come, help me get Merle and the guns. Going now will just get you killed."

"I won't die-"

"Are you willin' to risk it just to prove yourself right?" the sheriff cocked his head to the side, then held out a hand, "I'm sure you've heard my name but we haven't been formally introduced. I'm Rick Grimes."

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, pursing her lips. "I am willing to go for him, but clearly you won't give me that van if you want to go yourself tomorrow. It's a shame that you aren't even half of what I'd expect a sheriff to be."

He looked down at his outstretched hand, awkward, and then back to her, "I'm just a sheriff's deputy."

The brunette shrugged at him and the discrepancy in titles, not feeling enough respect for the man to shake his hand, and he dropped it to his side with a questioning look, "Alice Lockwood." Sure, he was clearly a good man, but she was angry and Merle was still on that roof and no one had stopped Shane taking things away from her like she was a toddler.

The journalist walked away, hands still tucked into the pockets of her pants, and swore. Merle was loud and stupid, never mind a humongous druggie, but Alice wasn't sure he deserved to stay on that roof all night. She was just hoping that Merle would be okay.

* * *

By morning, Alice had gained a handful of hours of sleep. The interrupted sleep cycle left her brain groggy, her muscles aching for no apparent reason. Hating the dry throat currently bothering her, the brunette crawled her upper half out of the sleeping bag and pulled off her top, finding her new clothes. It took her a few seconds to pull them on, shaking against the cold outside of the sleeping bag, before she slid back into the bundle of fabric. Alice might have stayed there longer, let her heavy head pull her back to sleep, if not for the sharp mental reminder that Merle was still trapped in Atlanta and she was meant to be going.

The journalist once again drew herself from the sleeping bag, this time crawling the few foot to the door of the tent, pausing momentarily to slide on her trainers before unzipping the flap and awkwardly crouching as she emerged from the red nylon.

The camp was bathed in the mixture of shadow and sunlight of morning, spots of light that crept through the leaves spotting the ground and the tents. Despite the number of people about, milling around tents and campfires, the camp was surprisingly quiet. The faint sound of birds and tired voices drifted about on the still air. Alice's tent sat in a pool of shadow, leaving it chilly.

She found herself warming up as she left the shadows, the sunlight around Dale's RV and the cooking fires giving her warmth. The man himself stood in front of his RV holding a set of plates that he must have just gotten from inside. Picking up a quick jog, and feeling her head spin a little at it, Alice rushed over with her hands held out.

"Let me give you a hand, Dale."

"Morning, Alice. Thank you." He said, giving her a warm smile before holding out the plates. The pile was a dozen or so high of mismatched plastic and China. Alice took them, surprised at the weight that suddenly pulled her arms down, and held the stack with the plates resting against her chest for support. The edges of the plates, a mixture of thinly edges plastic and dull ceramic, dug into the skin of her forearms as they wrapped under the plates.

"Where are these going?" She asked, waiting as Dale stepped back into the RV.

Dale spoke as he came out, handfuls of cutlery in either hand, "Over to the big campfire. We're having the last of the powdered eggs today."

Alice could see Lori and T-Dog conferring around the fire, cooking in a big frying pan that to Alice seemed more industrial than homely. The grate holding the pan above the fire was a four-legged stand that looked awfully likely to pitch over on the slanted ground.

"Morning guys." Alice said, awkwardly balancing the plates, "Where do you want these, Lori?"

Lori gestured to a small camping table a few steps from the fire, and Alice nodded before lowering the plates onto it and moving back.

"I'm telling you I make the best scrambled-eggs this side of Georgia," T-Dog said, mixing the gloopy paste of egg and preserved milk in the pan.

"Didn't know that you cook." Alice said, smiling at the pair, "Lori, I'm sorry but I won't be able to help you with the washing today; I'm going to Atlanta."

"Again?" She questioned, "After yesterday-"

"There was always a risk." The foreigner shrugged, "It's fine. I know what I'm doing."

Alice ignored that she really didn't, raising a hand to say goodbye before moving over to sit beside Glenn. He was talking to Morales, and Alice eagerly joined the conversation.

"People tell me to go back where I came from and I'm just thinking, do they want me to go back to Michigan?" He turned to Alice as she joined them, "Did you ever get stuff from assholes 'cause you're English?"

"Some Americans think that every English person has had tea with the Queen but no, not really. Just the occasional idiot telling me that there wasn't a revolution for me to walk around America."

"Speaking of the Queen," Glenn glanced about and when he was assured that no one was listening he said, "What's with Lori now that Rick's back? She completely ignored Shane this mornin', and I think he was on watch all night."

"That isn't our business," Morales said, despite the curiosity in his eyes. "Whatever family troubles they have, that's up to them to sort out."

"Shane seems a little obsessed with the family. Honestly, he seems really conflicted about Rick being back." Alice muttered. Guilt spread in her gut as she thought of Shane on watch all night.

"Rick's a good man. Smart too. Saved our asses in Atlanta, even with his delusions about helicopters." Morales said, "Shane was his partner. Must just be shocked that the man's back from the dead."

Alice turned to look for the man in question, seeing Shane and Rick in a conversation next to the RV. Their heads were bowed towards each other, talking low. Alice didn't fail to notice the way Shane's hand was possessively clenched around his shotgun.

"You think? Dale won't say it, but he has mentioned how Lori and Shane used to disappear into the woods at the same time." Glenn said. There was a glee in his eyes that came only from knowing exclusive information. She looked back to Shane and Rick, wondering if she was right. She'd thought that Shane liked Lori, or vice versa, but it seemed more and more likely that they'd had an affair.

A shrill screaming tore out of the woods, causing the pair of officers to look to each other before bucking it into the trees after the sound. It sounded like the kids. The foreigner ran after them out of panic, despite the lack of weapons on her person. The sound of leaves crunching and branches snapping whirled around them, Alice following the officers before her without any sense of direction.

She heard the wet, chewing sound and the intermittent groans before she saw the thing. The putridness of old flesh and the metal of new blood filled the air, both coming from the walker and its meal. Alice winced at the sight of exposed tendons of the deer's neck.

"Is anyone hurt?" she asked, closing her eyes as Dale raised his axe. After the squelching removal of the walker's rotted head, Alice opened her eyes again and noticed the two orange-and-yellow tipped arrows sticking from the deer's hind.

"This is the first one we've had up here." Dale quickly said, his hands shaking as he worried, "They never come this far up the mountain."

"They're running out of food in the city, that's what." Jim curled his lip at the walker, a foreboding look in his eye that Alice didn't like one bit.

She stared down at the head, stepping away from it's uncovered teeth, "I can't imagine just one left on its own."

A rustle came from the trees, and Alice unconsciously moved towards Shane who held up his shotgun. Without a weapon, she awkwardly stood watching the woods. Glancing back down to the deer, she studied the arrows that had pierced it. Her eyes followed the arrows upwards, to the tree line, and watched as a figure materialized from the woods. A black crossbow was propped up by muscular arms, held by a man just a little taller than Alice.

"Son of a bitch, that's my deer." He yelled, hurrying around a rock. Alice watched as he moved around the deer and the walker. He had the look of a trapped animal, prowling around the deer. The foreigner didn't know who he was, but no one seemed particularly shocked by the man's appearance and she figured that he was the one she'd seen by Merle at their separate little camp. There was a familiarity about him that would make sense if he was the younger Dixon.

"Look at it, all gnawed on by this filthy, disease-bearin', motherless, poxy bastard." The hunter barked, kicking the walker. She knew that the walkers weren't human but she wondered if the remains of the people they were, once, were due respect. Scrunching up her nose at the distasteful show, she hoped to avoid the blood splattering from the walker's neck as the redneck kicked it.

"Calm down son, that's not helping," Dale said.

"What do you know about it, old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to 'On Golden Pond'?" Alice wasn't sure what 'On Golden Pond' was, but she figured it was a joke about Dale's hat and RV. The man had a certain abrasive charm, but insulting Dale put her right off of him. Dale was a nice old man.

She watched as he sighed, giving the deer one last kick, "I tracked this deer for miles. Two damn days. Was gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison."

There was a crowd forming, staring at the one-man scene happening around the deer. He was loud, unpredictable. His abrasiveness made Alice curious, yet she was disgusted by his behavior. Kicking corpses, swearing before children, none of it was good. It wasn't even nice.

"What do you think? We cut 'round this chewed up bit right here, eat the rest?"

"I would not risk that," Shane said. Alice had forgotten the officer was stood beside her, shotgun still in his hands. "No one is eating anything infected while we still don't know how this works."

"That's a damn shame." The hunter's hand reached down, grabbing onto a rope around his side, and Alice saw a lot of creatures strung up, "I got some squirrel, about a dozen or so, that'll have to do."

A horrible groan drew Alice's attention from the hunter to the ground, to the decapitated head still by their feet. It was moving now, snarling and trying to snap its jaw. She jumped away from it, letting out an embarrassing squeak as it's face rolled towards her legs.

"What the hell people? It's gotta be the brain," he said, raising his crossbow and firing an arrow with a twang into the skull. It stopped the walker head's movements, the hunter putting his foot on the skull to pull out the arrow. "Don't y'all know nothing?"

Alice followed the man as he moved towards the camp, "Daryl, right?"

"What?" he snapped, pausing his movement to look at her.

"I'm Alice. I need to tell-"

"I know who y'are." He interrupted, turning and storming away before she could say another thing. Knowing he'd realize that Merle was gone on his own, Alice stood and wondered how he knew who she was. Wondered how he'd feel at the loss of his brother, considering how violent he'd become over the loss of a deer.

"He left the same day you went out with Glenn. Probably heard the whole camp talking about you." Dale said, standing back with her as the group moved back towards the camp. Alice could hear Daryl shouting his brother's name and didn't want to be a part of that conversation just yet, not when he'd already walked away from her once.

"You still agree with Shane that going for Merle yesterday was a stupid idea?"

"I think going at night would have been a bad idea. I'm not opposed to people returning today, though. My tools were left behind." Dale said.

"I'll get those for you if you lend me your bolt cutters." Alice bargained, taking small steps to keep pace with Dale.

"How do I know I won't lose those, too?"

"Glenn and I brought your tools back, didn't we?" Alice fiddled with the pieces of hair that'd escaped her messy bun, "We're reliable. Or, I am, I guess."

"Fine, but see if you can get me a rifle while you're out there. I don't like that there was a walker this close to camp." Dale said, "I'd feel a lot safer for myself and this camp if I could keep a rifle on watch."

"I'll keep an eye out."

* * *

Alice stood before Shane, looking up at him and squinting against the bright sun behind him, "It's daytime now, so give me the keys."

"If you're gonna go and die at least take the redneck with you before he gets half this group killed." Shane had a scowl across his face, deepened by the bags under his eyes. He really did look exhausted.

"Don't be a wanker." She said as he dropped the keys into her palm with a jingle of metal. Alice wrapped her fingers around them, feeling the jagged edges pressing in, "Thanks." She started walking away from him, not wanting him to change his mind.

"Wait, Shane, what did you mean by Daryl killing half the group?" she turned back. Daryl was brash, sure, but Alice thought that he wasn't really that bad. Was Shane suggesting that the man might attack the camp.

"Rick's taking Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn into Atlanta to get Merle and a bag of guns."

"Without me? Are you serious?" Rick had mentioned it the night before, but she didn't think he was going after all since he'd apparently had Daryl in a choke hold.

"I don't agree with it."

"You don't agree with anything." Alice rolled her eyes before looking around and, spotting Rick and Daryl, moved over to them.

"You're going to need bolt cutters to get to Merle." She said, adjusting the bag hanging from her back. "Let me come with. You said you'd let me go with you yesterday, Rick." Alice realized that if they were going then she didn't need to go, not at all, but she wanted to. She'd hated sitting at the camp obsessively waiting for them to come back.

"The hell are you gonna do for my brother? This ain't a damn parade into the city." Daryl said.

"Alice had my back in Atlanta. She should come." Glenn leaned out the back of the box truck. A smile crossed the journalist's face at Glenn standing up for her.

"You got a weapon?" Rick asked without even looking at her, counting the bullets in his handgun.

Alice patted the hatchet tucked into her belt, "I'm good to go."

"Then let's go. We ain't got all day, people." Daryl shouted, his voice followed by the slamming of the driver's door. Alice took Glenn's outstretched hand, letting him help her up into the van. She sat beside him on the floor of the van. T-Dog pulled the shutters closed, casting the interior into shadow, before sitting opposite them.

"You okay?" she asked T-Dog who was fidgeting with the zip of his backpack.

"Just hoping that Merle gets why we had to leave him." The man replied.

A voice chimed in from the front as the engine started, "You people best hope so. My brother ain't gonna take this bullshit lightly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed reading, and I can't wait to share more with you! : ) Since I only just joined A03, I'm pretty overwhelmed with all of this formatting and chapter options like whaaat, but also it means that this is pretty far behind. A Matter of Time is currently up to Chapter 15 on Fanfiction.net if you just want to binge read :) 
> 
> If you love/hate this, let me know! As ever, I appreciate everyone who gave kudos, bookmarked, commented or read. It means the world to me <3


	4. Just My Good Intentions

** Part One - Adjustments **

**4 - Just My Good Intentions**

* * *

The store was in disarray. Racks of clothing were knocked over, a whole section of pastel shirts were coated in a blackish liquid that had to be walker blood, and red smeared the ground under the layers of shattered glass where the glass doors had once been. A draft came in now, a cold chill that crept up on them and made the clothes shift on their racks. The movement made Alice tense, wondering if a walker would emerge from behind the racks.

Glenn motioned up the stairs and Alice followed, covering the rear as they went up. She moved backward, one hand on the railing and the other holding her hatchet. The stairs were still filled with the sour stench of death.

Alice heard them break the chain. It made a loud clang that echoed down the stairwell as it hit the floor and Alice waited a moment for any walkers that might have heard it before following the others upstairs. She heard Daryl before she saw him, him bawling out noises of guttural pain that sounded as though they were being torn from his throat. He on the other side of the roof, stomping around as though if he stopped moving he would collapse. Alice walked over to them, footsteps scuffing along the stone until she was close enough to see.

A severed hand.

Her throat clenched up, her stomach trying to expel the little she'd eaten. Alice crouched, covering her mouth, and managed not to puke. A pool of dark blood spread out from under a pair of cuffs that hung from an old rusted pipe. One of the cuffs was caked in dry blood. A hacksaw was on the ground, just as red and bloodstained.

"He didn't think we were coming back," she said, watching as Daryl stalked around, making noises that weren't words, just pain. Alice knew that he wasn't the kind of person to take a hug from her, a virtual stranger, no matter how much she wanted to hug him and stop anything ever hurting him. Daryl Dixon didn't seem the type to hug anybody.

Daryl was maddened by that enough to raise his crossbow on T-Dog. His whole body was tense, shaking, sad. Alice put a hand on her hatchet, eyeing the door to the roof, as Rick raised his gun, pointing it at the redneck's head. A gunshot was a lot of noise.

"I will not hesitate. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it." The sheriff threatened. Daryl stared at T-Dog. Rick was law enforcement; he'd never go through with murder unless he believed T-Dog's life was truly at risk. Of course, Daryl and his brother could easily have been the type to be in a murderous illegal gang.

Rick still held the pistol to the hunter's head. "We do not kill the living."

After a long moment, Daryl lowered his crossbow.

"Pretty ironic, considering you're still holding a gun to his head," Alice said.

The sheriff's deputy put his gun away, and Daryl rolled his shoulders in an attempt to brush off the incident, "You got a do-rag or something'?" he asked man fumbled in his pockets before handing over a blue rag. T-Dog looked ghastly enough that Alice made a mental note to later remind him that this wasn't his fault. Merle had walked himself into it, taking drugs and causing hell on the run.

Alice watched Daryl picking up his brother's hand with a fascination before she turned to the edge of the roof, peering over and circling around the rooftop, scanning the pavement as she went.

"The hell are you doing'?" Daryl barked and the journalist turned to see him staring at her before he said, "We gotta go."

"I don't see any splattered bodies, not even a puddle of blood," she said, "So Merle didn't turn on here and fall, or jump, so he must be wandering around Atlanta," she paused before adding, "Alive or dead."

"My brother's tough as nails. He ain't dead." The hunter followed something on the ground, to the second set of stairs on the roof, and Alice realized that he was tracking drops of his brother's blood.

* * *

In the dark corridors, they found nothing more than a walker that Daryl ended with a quick bolt to the head. Alice, meanwhile, was fumbling with the ax in her grasp. She'd never used anything like it on a walker before and she was scared to get too close and fail.

Two walkers were dead on the ground in the next room, a wrench beside them. A smashed window was on the far side of the room and

"Had enough power to take out these two sumbitches," Daryl broke their silence, "One-handed. Toughest bastard I ever met, my brother."

"Any man can pass out from blood-loss, no matter how tough he is," Rick said, checking around the room for danger, or Merle, who right then came under the same category.

"Then we find his unconscious arse, stop the bleeding and try and do a transfusion. What's his blood type, Daryl?" Alice said, seeing the panicked fidgeting the hunter was trying to hide.

"I dunno. He ain't been in the hospital often, just jail, and he sure as hell wasn't gonna give blood even if he could," Daryl smirked, "Always gettin' into damn trouble."

Alice didn't believe his smirk, sort of thought that maybe Daryl looked a little disapproving of Merle's behavior. But she held her tongue because the middle of the search for his potentially dead brother wasn't the time to ask about family relationships.

"I'm O negative, so it doesn't really matter, but we can figure it out anyway, right? Isn't there someone with medical training in the camp?" Alice leaned against the wall, already tired from the walking they'd done in this heat and the constant thrum of her anxious heart.

"One of the other women used to be a doctor. I don't know her name, though. She usually sits with some of the others, don't talk to 'em much." T-Dog said.

"It's so weird that the camp is so split up. You'd think people surviving in a quarry together for two months would know each other well. I'd bet Shane knows her, though."

"Stop with the damn small talk. Look," Daryl interrupted. Alice followed his point to the flaming stove. Rick advanced with the hunter to examine the grill. Alice could see something charred stuck to the white surface.

"What's that burnt stuff?" Glenn asked.

The sheriff took a moment before responding, "Skin. He cauterized the stump."

Alice winced and put a protective hand around her wrist.

"Told ya he's tough. Nobody can kill Merle but Merle." Daryl spat.

Rick softened his eyes, "Don't take that on faith; he's lost a lot of blood."

"If he didn't pass out here from the pain then I reckon he's pretty close to invincible- even if it is probably some of the drugs still in his system." Alice said, "He willingly stuck his self-amputated wrist into a burning flame, after all."

"This girl gets it," Dixon said, prowling along the length of the room to a window. One corner of it was smashed in.

"I have a name." She said but received no response from the hunter who had his head pressed up to the window. Maybe he didn't know it, or he didn't care for enough to use it.

"There's a fire escape. I think he got out here."

"He left the building?" Glenn stared at the shattered window, not knowing why someone would go onto the street with one hand and no backup.

"Why wouldn't he? Far as he knows, he's alone." Daryl said, scowling to himself.

"I guess we're going on a Merle scavenger hunt, then," Alice said. She bit her nails; strolling around the streets of the city wasn't something she'd ever imagined herself doing.

"The hell are his odds out there?" T-Dog asked. Alice had to agree. Tough or not, Atlanta was almost impossible to survive in while in good health and with a weapon.

"No worse than being handcuffed and left to rot by you damn bastards." Daryl said, "I'mma go get him."

"We can help you. He can't have gotten far with that injury. We'll check a few blocks around and see if we can't find him," Rick was leaning close to the hunter, causing the redneck to twitch as he stood still, refusing to meet Rick's firm gaze.

"I can do that." Daryl scowled, suddenly becoming animated as he strode away from Rick and towards the stove, forcefully turning it off.

"Only if we get those guns first." T-Dog said, "I'm not strolling the streets of Atlanta with just my good intentions, okay?"

* * *

"Glenn, this is such a stupid idea." Alice said, rolling the office chair that she perched on back and forth across the floor, "I mean, you've seen how they surround people."

"Even I think it's a bad idea and I don't even like you that much," Daryl said, pacing back and forth. Alice stopped the chai's movements to shove a pad of paper and some pens into her backpack. She missed writing.

"It's a good idea." Glenn said, "Just hear me out, okay?" Rick crouched beside Glenn who continued explaining, "If we go out there as a group we're slow, drawing attention."

Alice moved her chair along the floor to the group so that she could see Glenn's tape map. It consisted of accurately placed white tape that resembled the road and buildings.

"If I'm alone, I can move fast. Look," he placed two paperweights onto the map, "Here's the tank and that's the bag of guns. Here's the alley I dragged you into where we first met," he looked up at Rick before using paperclips to represent the people on the map, "Daryl and I will go here."

"Why me?"

"Your crossbow is quieter than his gun." He said, an awkward moment of silence between the hunter and Glenn, "Daryl can wait here while I run and get the bag of guns."

"You'd have us elsewhere?" Rick asked. Behind him, Alice thought she saw a bird flying behind the gray blinds of the office windows.

"I may not be able to come back the same way. If walkers cut me off, I have you guys two blocks this way. That way I won't go back to Daryl, I'll go forward instead, to you."

"Where do I fit into this?" Alice leaned back in her chair.

"You stay here, cover our base camp. Things go south down there, we can't run back here just to find out that we're trapped between a rock and a hard place," Glenn said, "No matter which way I go, I've got you guys to cover me."

"I should be down there, covering Daryl's back," she argued, "He might be all badass with his crossbow but it doesn't mean he can't be overwhelmed alone."

"Ok, but we need to make sure that this place is secure before we leave," Glenn said, shifting the white paperclip that represented Alice to the alley with Daryl's black one.

"Hey kid, what'd you do before all this?" the redneck asked.

"Delivered pizzas." Alice smiled at Glenn's confused face, understanding why Daryl was asking.

"You'd think he was some sort of tactical genius, huh?" she sent a smile in the hunter's direction but received nothing in return. He just met her gaze for a moment.

"Glenn's the smartest pizza guy I ever knew," T-Dog grinned.

"We're burnin' daylight here. C'mon, les'go." Daryl jumped up, prowling towards the doorway of the office as though he was expecting everyone to follow him. Alice thought that he didn't seem to expect anyone to follow him, though, that was just his demeanor - rather the opposite. Daryl seemed to think no one would ever stick by his side and he'd have to go out there alone to deal with whatever he had to do. The thought put a frown on her face.

* * *

They advanced through the alleyway, footsteps tapping on the ground. The hunter before her stepped with a silence gained from years of practice, hunching low around his crossbow. She made sure to stay behind him, watching as Glenn ran ahead.

"Ya got balls for a Chinaman," Daryl said, chuckling to himself.

"I'm Korean."

"Whatever."

Alice hissed, putting a finger to her lips, "Can you shut up, please?"

She was aware of the likely-millions of walkers in the city around them. Atlanta had been big before the majority of the south-eastern states had been evacuated to the city; now it was a deathtrap. One wrong move, one wrong noise, and it would be all over.

Glenn gave her a nod before disappearing out into the street. The brunette watched as the once complacent walkers awakened from their stupor, raising their arms and growling, moving in at shambled jog as they followed the living moving amongst them. Alice dropped to the ground beside Daryl, tucking herself between him and the wall.

"Ya think he's gonna make it?"

"Of course he will." Alice swallowed, grasped the worry that he wouldn't and shoving it down, deep down, and kept her eyes on the walkers at the entrance of the alley. She saw Daryl raise a hand, tense down, and lean around the container. Her clammy fingers shifted around the hatchet handle. She could hear it now, shuffling moving behind them.

Daryl slid away, moving out, and she heard a shout.

"Whoa, don't shoot me!" Alice didn't know that voice.

"I'm looking for my brother." Daryl spat. All of their group knew he was looking for Merle and he wasn't dumb enough to reiterate to anyone they knew in the middle of this. This was a stranger. Oh  _fuck._

Alice stood and moved around the dumpster. Daryl had his crossbow pointed at some kid, prowling closer with every step, "He's hurt real bad. You seen 'im?"

The kid started screaming something. A foreign language, maybe. The walkers in the street that had lagged behind after Glenn turned towards the alley, hunting for food.

"You need to shut up or we're going to become a three-course meal." Alice said, moving towards the pair, "We aren't going to hurt you, shut up."

"Answer me, damnit, you're gonna bring the geeks down on us." Daryl growled, "You seen my brother?"

The boy kept screaming, standing completely still. Alice realized that if he wasn't running, he was waiting for someone. Daryl knocked the boy to the ground and covered his mouth.

"Daryl, hold up, we need to go." she breathed, her voice becoming steadily louder, "I think he has people coming. We have to go!"

The hunter looked back at her, narrowed his eyes, and they both looked towards the gate that led to the road just as it was swung open. Two men burst through, shoving past a walker. Alice stumbled back in fear. Her hatchet had fallen somewhere. Her head spun, dizzy, but Alice managed to spot her ax on the ground beside her feet. She crouched and grabbed it.

They were kicking Daryl, one hitting him with a baseball bat. Shit. Shit, she didn't know what to do. It was happening again. Alice stood still, seeing Delia be shot down. Seeing Delia be- she pushed it away.

"Get off of him," Alice screamed, bringing down the ax. It hit the one with the baseball bat, sinking into his arm. Blood started pouring, dripping off his arm. He turned, and shouted, shoving her with his good arm. Pain shot through her back as she hit the floor. Shuffled back on her hands and knees. They could grab her. They could take her- they could-

"That's it, that's the bag, vato." They left Daryl's side and ran. Alice turned to see Glenn with the bag of guns, saw him drop it on the ground and panic on the spot.

An arrow hit one of the men in the arse. Alice dove for the bag of guns, scraping her arms along the floor, and clutched the bag to her chest. The weight was more than she expected and she could barely lift it. The one with the baseball bat had the bat wrapped around Glenn, backing away with him as cover. Alice saw them holding the man in the direction of Daryl's crossbow. She dropped the bag. Lunged for Glenn, but they yanked the gate as they moved, backing into the street, and into a car that Alice hadn't noticed arrive. A squeal of tires later, they were gone, leaving Alice crouched, breathing heavily.

"Shit, shit, shit. They got Glenn." She said, standing. She saw T-Dog and Rick running from the other end of the alleyway, a little too late. Alice pulled at the gate, closing it. The papery finger of one of the dead brushed against hers and she flinched back.

"What happened?" Rick panted.

"Some assholes took Glenn," Daryl growled, advancing onto the boy from earlier. He was backed up against the wall, trapped by the hunter, "This little bastard and his little bastard homie friends."

"We have to go." Alice grabbed the bag of guns, holding it out by the strap to Rick, "We need to go right now - they might come back with their people. We need to go." She was repeating, panting, couldn't quite catch her breath. She was scared.

"I'm gonna stop your ass!" Daryl screeched at the boy, pressing the crossbow against his chest.

"Daryl." Rick said, putting a hand on the redneck's arm, "We've got to go. Bring him with us."

* * *

"Those men you were with, we need to know where they went," Alice asked the boy. He himself seemed harmless.

"I ain't telling you nothing."

"We need our man back. We can trade, you for him." Alice sat beside him on a chair, ignoring the others, "All you have to do is tell us where they went."

"How do I know you ain't one of those groups, the ones that raid and shoot up everything?"

"Any of those groups ever have a woman?" Alice ran a finger along the edge of her hatchet, surprised that it had stayed so clean, "Not one that wasn't tied up and half naked." Alice swallowed.

"I don't trust you, I ain't saying nothing." The boy looked away. Alice stood, walking closer to the others. She felt safer around them.

"Jesus, what the hell happened back there?" T-Dog asked, leaning onto the desk with his head rested on his hands.

"Told you, this kid and his friends jumped us, took Glenn," Daryl said. He paced back around the table. Daryl never seemed to stop moving. It seemed to Alice that he kept going, like a wheel, never stopping or changing direction even if it would destroy him.

"You jumped me, puto." the boy changed his gaze from Daryl to Rick, identifying him as the de-facto leader of their small party, "Screaming about his brother like it's my damn fault."

"You took Glenn," Daryl raised his crossbow for a moment, "'coulda taken Merle too."

"Merle?" the kid laughed, "What kinda hick name is that? I wouldn't name my dog Merle."

The redneck moved towards the kid, snarling, but Rick stopped him, "Daryl, back off."

"That's rude," Alice said, shifting on her feet, "What's your name?"

"Miguel."

"I'm Alice," She said, "Look, I just want my friend back. So long as your people haven't hurt him, I don't think we'll have a problem."

"Your hick friend is a problem."

Alice turned to Daryl, watching him growl, and looked from him to the bag that Glenn carried. He nodded.

"I'm sure I can keep them in line, but- well, they get pretty angry. Do things to people who insult them, insult their family." Alice

The boy shrugged into his chair. Alice turned, seeing Daryl unwrapping something, "You wanna see what happened to the last guy who pissed me off?"

He threw an object over Alice, landing on Miguel's lap, and Alice realised that it was Merle's hand. She leaned back into her char as the boy jumped, cowering in the corner.

"Maybe I'll start with the feet next,-" Daryl was on top of Miguel, but Rick shoved him aside to speak to him quietly. When he was done, the boy nodded, shaking.

Alice stood, brushing her hands on her pants,"That was messed up in so many ways."

When they were done planning, Alice pulled Rick aside. He stood with her away from the others, leaning in to listen to her, "I don't know how to shoot."

"You don't know anything?"

"No." Alice chewed at her nail, "No gun culture back in England."

"Alright, I want you on the roof with T-Dog. You hold a gun, T-Dog can show you how to load it and turn the safety off." He put his hat on, "This goes as planned, you won't need to shoot."

She nodded, and the pair weaved back through and over to the others. Rick pulled out a rifle for her, passing her it and a box of rounds. Daryl scoffed at the sight of her awkwardly holding the rifle, her arm lowering under the weight. Alice knew it was obvious she had no idea what to do with it. She just hoped those vatos wouldn't figure it out.

"Let's go."

* * *

She leaned over the rooftop with T-Dog, clutching at the rifle with her finger hovering over the trigger and her eye pressed up against the scope. Alice didn't want to kill anybody, but she wasn't sure she had a choice. They spoke below them, with faces that looked angrier than they did calm and compromising. She just told herself that she'd miss, of course she'd miss, she only had one shot anyway and Alice didn't think she could do all of the steps T-Dog had taught her to reload it.

Alice was fairly sure that this was going to go badly.

"Man, please just make the deal."

The brunette cast her eyes over to the man for a moment before leaning back into the scope, "It's okay."

"This is bullshit. Are we seriously holding people at gunpoint?" he asked.

"It's easier to pretend that they're never sorting this out. Makes it seem more, you know, justifiable. Survival and all that."

"It is all over, at least for a good long while. Jacqui called it a speedbump." Alice heard his rifle scrape on the ledge as he adjusted himself, "I just don't wanna kill nobody."

Alice watched as Glenn was dragged onto the roof, aiming at the men holding him. He had duct-tape over his mouth, his arms held yanked behind his back. If Alice shot at them, they could drop him. There was no way, if it didn't kill him, that they could help Glenn from a fall like that. They didn't even have any aspirin left at camp.

She lowered her aim back to the men before Rick. She had to trust that T-Dog had loaded the rifle correctly so that it would shoot. The brit knew that she needed to learn how to operate a gun if she wanted to survive until the military came,

The men dragged Glenn away and Alice watched, disbelieving, as the Vatos closed the doors, the men up top taking Glenn away. Rick didn't walk away until the vatos had closed their doors, everything over in a few moments. They still had Miguel, not Glenn.

"The hell?"

* * *

"Them guns worth more than gold." Daryl paced back and forth, crossbow hanging from his calloused hands. Alice rifled through the filing cabinets, cold metal and paper beneath her fingers. It was all documents; things no one really cared about anymore.

"They'll protect your family, put food on the table, you willing to give them up for some kid?" Alice turned back to look at Daryl as he spoke, the light coming in through the blinds to light up one side of him. He sounded different, less aggressive.

"Glenn wasn't even bruised." Alice said, "They aren't going to hurt him."

"Not yet, but they will."

"Assuming that they will doesn't justify going in there with guns blazing."

"If I knew we were going to get Glenn back then I might agree, but you really think that Vato across the way is just gonna hand them over?"

Miguel spoke up, barking like a little dog from where he sat on the floor, "You calling G a liar?"

The hunter lunged towards him, shouting, "You a part of this? You want to hold onto your teeth?" Daryl moved away from him, looking back to Rick,"Question is, do you trust that man's word? No, question is what are you willing to bet on it? Could be more than them guns. Could be your life."

"What life I have I owe to him. I was nobody to Glenn, just some idiot stuck in a tank. He could have walked away, but he didn't." Rick zipped up the bag, "Neither will I. You three should head back to camp."

"He saved me too, Rick." Alice said, "I was threatening to hit him with a baseball bat. He coulda bolted, or taken the little I had, but he didn't. Doubt I would have lasted another day alone in this city. I'm coming, whatever I can do."

"So you're gonna hand the guns over?" T-Dog asked, sighing to himself. He rested his face against his hand, shaking it.

"I didn't say that."

Alice tried to evoke three years of drama lessons as she held the gun, pointing it at the man stood before them. It was a little pistol, but it was heavy, and terrifying, and it could kill something. She really hoped that she looked like Lara Croft, or Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, but Alice knew she probably looked more like an idiot with a gun.

"I see my guns, but they're not all in the bag." The man at the front, Guillermo, said. Two men stood on either side of him with their guns up, over a dozen other men circling them in the building.

"That's because they're not yours. I thought I mentioned that." Alice's heart thudded at Rick's defiance, but she'd said she was going to do this and it was too late to back out now. She'd have to learn to be useful, at least until they reestablished enough society that she could just write articles and short stories and complain about not having a standing desk.

Alice adjusted her grip as the two men beside him egged Guillermo on to give the order, to shoot them all down. She wouldn't die like this, it wouldn't happen, they'd figure it out. The journalist figured that unrealistic hope was better than dropping her weapon then and there.

"I don't think you fully appreciate the gravity of the situation," Guillermo smiled, but Alice realised that he looked scared too, his eyes apprehensive. He didn't want to get his men killed.

"No, I'm pretty clear. You have your man, I want mine." Rick demanded. Alice winced, taking long breaths to fight the tightness constricting her chest. She spared a moment to scowl at Miguel, hiding behind the ranks of men, the place where he'd run the moment Rick let him go.

"I'm gonna chop up your boy, I'm gonna feed him to my dogs," Guillermo bounced on his heels as he said it, "They're the evilest, nastiest man-eating bitches you ever saw. I picked them up from Satan at a yard sale-"

"You're really lathering this on, mate." Alice interrupted, stalling when all eyes landed on her, listening. She'd forgotten, for a second, that the noise would draw everyone's attention to her, "I'm just saying."

'I told you how it has to be. You gonna help me feed my hellhounds tonight or give me my guns?"

Alice rolled her eyes. She was worried about Glenn shooting them, not being fed to dogs.

"You said come locked and loaded." Rick said, raising his gun back up. Alice screamed in her head, shut up shut up, but she clearly wasn't a telepath, "Okay then, we're here."

The echoing click of guns being loaded and safeties being turned off moved around the room, the weapons raising to point at the group of them. Alice shrunk herself down in her mind, slowly turning about with her pistol pointed forwards. She didn't even know how to reload the thing.

"Felipe! Felipe!" Alice stopped her awkward turn back and forth long enough to see the old woman advancing through the weapons.

"Get that old lady out of the line of fire!"

"Daryl, shouldn't you be questioning why there's an old lady in a bandit group instead?" she muttered, a little strength to speak.

Alice lowered the pistol, not knowing how to turn the safety off, as the bald guy Daryl had shot in the arse, 'Felipe', tried to reason with his grandmother,"Abuela, listen-"

"Mr Gilbert is having trouble breathing. He needs his asthma stuff. He needs his medicine." The journalist questioned how many other people they had back there, and if they were all old or just ill.

"Felipe, go take care of it, okay?" Guillermo ordered him, and the man attempted to pull his grandmother away. The woman had another plans, her surprisingly intelligent eyes scanning Rick.

"Don't you take him," she said, advancing up to Rick, "Felipe's a good boy. He have his trouble bur he pull himself together."

"Ma'am, I'm not here to arrest your grandson,"

Alice snorted, an unstoppable smile stretching out her mouth. Rick turned, tilting his head at her and staring, and Alice covered her mouth before mumbling, "Sorry."

"What do you want my Felipe for?"

"He's helping us find a missing person, fella named Glenn."

"The Asian boy? He's with Mr Gilbert."

The woman took Rick's hand, leading him along, and Alice heard Guillermo order the men to let them pass. She walked through last, making sure to pat Felipe's shoulder as she went by, "This is why you always respect your elders."

Inside, and through a courtyard, the woman led them. Alice was sort of worried, for a moment, that the lady was just an elaborate plan to trick them into a killing room. When they came through the door, Alice knew that she was wrong. The walls were a shade somewhere between baby blue and grey, a soft background for the old people sat around. Alice could see Glenn, leaned over beside a heaving man.

It smelt of sterilization, like a hospital.

"Glenn?"

"Oh, hey guys." He turned away from the man, smiling at them as Felipe attended to the man.

"We thought you were being eaten by dogs, man." T-Dog clapped the Asian on the shoulder, "What is this?"

Alice watched as Rick pulled Guillermo aside, suddenly stood alone as the others moved into their own conversations. Daryl was fidgeting with the strap of his crossbow, just as alone.

"Hi." Alice said, holding her pistol out, "I don't know how to work this, and we're in a nursing home. Could you?"

The hunter made a noise, taking the gun from her outstretched hand without touching her, "Ya shouldn't ever point it around like that, gonna get someone killed."

"Sorry." He didn't reply, moving his hands over the weapon before tucking it into his waistband. Alice got the feeling that the man didn't want to talk and moved away, standing awkwardly on the edge of Glenn and T-Dog's conversation. She'd missed her phone for lot in the last two months; quick communication, youtube, music. She missed it now because there was nothing to occupy her hands, to make her look busy.

The old people looked happy like the world hadn't really ended. She supposed that it never really had for them. They'd been living in here Before, just the same. Now the thing keeping them in wasn't their age, or their family. It was the living dead.

* * *

"I'm not walking."

"Alice, we haven't got any choice. Merle took-" T-Dog said, but Alice interrupted him.

"There's a whole city of abandoned vehicles here. You're telling me that we won't find one with a key?" She was tired, and sore, and everything about the day had been a complete mess. Alice was sick of this whole 'end of the world' crap.

Rick sighed, making his annoyance known. It was still the daytime, the last of the head pressing on them. There was no shade to protect them from the sun's heat. Though England had always occasionally had a good couple of days during the summertime, the majority of the days were at least half cloud cover and Alice hadn't ever quite gotten used to the heat of Georgia in the summer. More than anything, Alice just wanted a shower.

"There were too many walkers back there."

"I am literally frying to a crisp here. There weren't that many walkers." Alice wouldn't have been complaining half of much if not for the whole city of cars they could use, "I'm sure we could get a car."

The sheriff rolled his eyes, then leaned forward and dropped his hat into his hand. He extended his hand out to her, shaking his head, "Don't get sunstroke."

"You serious?"

"You complained about the sun."

"Fine." The journalist took the hat from him, adjusting her low ponytail before putting the hatono her head. The small bit of shade around her face was relaxing, relieving her of the heat. "Don't you need this, since you just woke up from a coma and everything?"

"I was born and raised in Georgia; I can handle it."

* * *

An hour, maybe two, had passed. Actually, Alice didn't have a clue, but the sun had dipped low in the sky and she felt like she'd been dragging her feet along for days. Her knees were numb, and the balls of her feet throbbed with every step. She groaned, feeling the numb pain that coated her feet. She was getting blisters on her heels, making everything hurt that much more, "I can't even brag about how many steps I've done to my health freak coworkers."

"You need a proper pair of boots," Daryl said, "Those sneakers ain't no good."

He yanked at the strap over his shoulder, acting like the walk didn't bother him at all. It probably wasn't too bad for him, Alice thought, if he'd spent two days away from camp in the woods with nothing but a little bag.

"And to think, this all would have been avoided if Alice and Shane could have agreed." T-Dog said, causing her to turn over to him. She didn't want to talk about the humiliation of having to give Shane the keys.

"Well, we didn't."

"It's true. If you'd come and got Merle yesterday then it would have saved us a whole load of trouble today," T-Dog said, "Shane's an asshole sometimes. No offense, Rick."

"None taken."

"The hell are y'all talkin' 'bout? You sayin' that you were gonna come get my brother yesterday but you didn't?" His eyes were narrowed, and he'd suddenly stopped on the road.

"Alice wanted to come roam around Atlanta on that motorcycle for Merle but Shane was being the bossman again."

"He took the keys to my bike."

"Ya was gonna go to Atlanta alone for my brother?"

"He's still a person, deserves saving and all that." Alice rambled under Daryl's gaze. He gave her a deep nod before turning, walking on as though nothing had happened. The journalist moved with him, ahead of the others, trusting his sense of direction.

He lowered his voice so that the others couldn't hear, using the most hospitable tone that she'd heard from either of the Dixon brothers, "Ain't ya fault that ya couldn't go. It's that asshole, Shane, he ain't got no right in pretending he's the damn king."

Alice tried not to think too hard about him knowing how she felt so easily.

"Still, I wish I could have done something." She fell back with the hunter, walking a few paces behind everyone else, "Who knows where Merle is now."

"Back at camp, I bet, raising hell. If he ain't, he's out there surviving' somewhere."

"I hope so."

"He is." The hunter took that opportunity to move faster, outpacing the tired brit, and she tried her best not to feel offended. She wasn't that bad to talk to, surely.

Her brooding thoughts were interrupted when Rick spoke, "Hold up."

Her legs shook a little under her as she stopped and stood still beside the sheriff. He raised his hand, listening, and Alice knew to be quiet. It took a moment for her to hear it, listening past the sound of her own heaved breathing.

Screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time ever using A03 so I'm not entirely sure if I formatted or tagged any of this well... so yeah. This is the first chapter of A Matter of Time and the updates, at least until I exhaust my supply of ready-written chapters, will be every Sunday : )
> 
> I just want to say a big thank you to anyone who's read this. The fact that literally anybody is reading what I've written means a lot to me.
> 
> This story will follow the canon plot somewhat even though I will be filling some gaps of skipped time and diverging from parts of the plot. It's really just some of our favourite characters (and not so favourite) from a new perspective since I was rewatching Seasons 1 and 2 and I was missing the old style of Team Family being together doing things.
> 
> It's gonna be a slowburn DarylxOC and a few characters are going to be dying in different places/times in addition to a few plot changes. If you don't like OC's or variations from the show plot then this story isn't for you, but if you do, I hope you stick around for more!
> 
> DISCLAIMER : No characters, plots, references, etc from The Walking Dead Universe are owned by me. Only my OC and my prose are mine.


End file.
